With the explosion in Internet access and usage individuals have discovered that they may now receive a large amount of information in their homes and offices almost immediately from any number of sources. These sources include everything from the latest news, weather, and sports to stocks, bond and commodity prices. Currently, a typical Internet user would have a browser installed in his local computer or server such as Internet Explorer™ or Netscape™. Using this browser, the user would access an Internet service provider, such as America-On-Line (AOL™), via a modem over the local public switched telephone network (PSTN). Once logged onto the Internet server, the user may utilize one of the many search engines, such as Yahoo™ or Lycos™, to specify search terms. The user may also use a web crawler, spider or robot to attempt to find a product, service or information desired. The search engine or web crawler would then respond with a list of web sites which matched the search terms the user provided. The user would then log onto a web site and view the products or services available for sale or receive the information desired. Further, if the user discovers a web site he prefers, the user may store the universal resource locator (URL) in a favorites' directory for later quick access. Finally, due partly to the availability of the Internet, day trading has become very popular. Day traders will often sit in front a monitor and watch as trades in stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities and options occur on the major markets. These day traders will often make numerous purchases and sales in a given day. However, the ability to monitor the trading on a major market such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is often difficult for the average user since it entails monitoring trading occurring in hundreds of stocks simultaneously. The volume of information that would have to be received would easily exceed the capability of 56K modem.
To overcome this problem, day traders and others often will turn to broadband cable Internet access such as provided by @HomeSM or join a service which has computers set up at a given location that may be used by their members. If a broadband cable Internet service is used, the improvement in throughput can be significant. This improvement in throughput is possible through the use of coax or fiber optic cable. However, the price is also significantly higher than Internet access available through an Internet service provider, such as AOL™, using the local public switched telephone network (PSTN). Further, whether using a trading service or a broadband cable Internet service, the user is often limited to a single site where they can access the desired information.
Recently cellular phone service providers have been making available Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) and Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) capable cellular phones for Internet access wherever digital cellular phone access is available. Using such a WAP-capable phone, a user no longer is tied to a fixed location in order to access the Internet. However, the screen size on such a WAP-capable phone is limited. Further, even when using a palm computer or lap top connected to a cellular phone, the bandwidth is so limited by the cellular phone that receiving real-time information is difficult if not impossible. This is particularly the case when an entire screen must be refreshed when a single piece of information on the screen needs to be changed as would be the case when a HTML refresh tag is used. Still further, there is no known system or method that can display real-time information in a easily readable form and adjust for screens of dramatically varying sizes.
Therefore, what is needed are a system and method in which a user may monitor changing events on a real-time basis on a portable device as well as a stationary device. This system and method should be able to communicate, adjust to and effectively display information any size screen. Further, this system and method should keep data transfer to an absolute minimum so as to use all available bandwidth for the critical real-time data that may change at any given moment. Further, this system and method should require minimum hardware capability in the user portable device so that the size and cost of the user portable device can be kept low.